This quite astounding docudrama by brothers Bill and Turner Ross seems to coalesce all that is precious and precarious about the US on the brink of the 2016 election that saw Trump come to power and the lives of the powerless crumble.
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Ray Yeung’s sad and beautiful drama sensitively shows the genteel oppression of family in contemporary Hong Kong.
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I’m not sure what I was expecting with this low-key Canadian documentary by Jean-François Lesage that uses the lost and found office at the Montreal metro as a jumping off point for a meditation on loss. From the first bleak and beautiful scene of snow falling against a night sky as a clarinet mournfully plays, you know this is going to be about more than a lost mitten.
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A documentary about Colonia Dignidad, the German fundamentalist evangelical cult based in a Chilean rural compound and led by subsequently convicted paedophile Paul Schäfer, seems to promise shock and horror at the uncovering of the many atrocities that happened there in the 60s and 70s. Directors Marianne Hougen-Moraga and Estephan Wagner manage instead to craft a contemplative and non-didactic meditation on human nature, trauma and denial.
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Who knew that the comedy 9 to 5 (1980) was based on an actual grassroots organisation that began in the 70s to advocate for fair work conditions for (mainly female) clerical workers?
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I was expecting a somewhat easy ride from this Irish thriller starring GOT villain Aiden Gillen. Its slow and sparse storytelling occasionally faltered but it sucked me right in to its compelling and unsettling tale.
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It’s good to start a film festival on a high and this sweet, sexy, lyrical and hopeful first feature by Faraz Shariat hit just the right note.
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Image via miff.com.au
Pema Tseden’s gorgeous and enigmatic Tibetan road movie has the bleached understatement of Sergio Leone and the lush intimacy of (producer) Wong Kar Wai.
Image via miff.com.au
What a delight this wacky film is, steeped in saturated pastels and sharp, contemporary satire. Continue reading
Image via miff.com.au
Ten minutes into this sophomore feature by Kaili Blues (2015) director Gan Bi, I remembered how much I struggled to engage with his first film. Continue reading
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